EDITORIAL: Who Guards the Truth? The Shared  and Shifting Burden of Nigeria’s Information Space

When the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) published an article titled “FLASHBACK: Joash Amupitan, New INEC Chair, Once Argued Budget Padding ‘Is Lawful’,” it probably did not expect to find itself at the centre of a national debate on responsibility in the information space. The story revisited a past academic argument made by Joash Amupitan, recently nominated to succeed Mahmood Yakubu as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But it was the headline, not the content, that triggered a storm.

On X (formerly Twitter), where the story was shared, the reactions were swift and scathing. Some users accused FIJ of setting an agenda against a man yet to assume office. “No even reach 24 hours, you don set agenda. Na wa o,” wrote one user, capturing the frustration of those who felt the newsroom was rushing to define public opinion.

Another user, @raw_eez, accused FIJ of “clickbaiting to attract traffic,” pointing out that the headline omitted Amupitan’s full statement: “But that does not mean that they cannot be investigated if there is a commission of a crime.” Others took sides, some defending FIJ’s journalistic duty to remind the public of a nominee’s past views, others warning that framing matters just as much as facts.

What this episode exposes is a deeper tension that has long defined Nigeria’s media ecosystem: who truly bears the responsibility of protecting and preserving the integrity of our information space, journalists, citizens, or the government?

The Journalist’s Dilemma

At the heart of journalism lies a paradox: the duty to inform the public without being accused of manipulating it. Investigative newsrooms like FIJ walk a particularly thin line between exposure and framing. In this case, FIJ’s headline was factually accurate; Amupitan once made the argument in a public forum. Yet, its timing and phrasing inevitably coloured perception. “Budget padding is lawful” sounds, to the average reader scrolling through social media, like an endorsement of corruption, even if the full article offered legal nuance.

This is where editorial responsibility meets digital literacy. In a media environment driven by algorithms, virality often overshadows nuance. Headlines are written for clicks, not contemplation. Still, journalists cannot hide behind the pressures of engagement metrics. The framing of information determines its reception, and the ethical burden lies in anticipating, not reacting to, how the public interprets a story.

But blaming journalists alone misses the broader picture. Nigeria’s information space is not a one-way phenomenon where newsrooms speak and citizens passively absorb. It is  a crowded ecosystem where everyone from bloggers to politicians to everyday users produces, amplifies, and contests information.

The Citizen’s Complicity

The outrage at FIJ’s post, ironically, illustrates another truth: audiences, too, have a responsibility. The users who accused FIJ of clickbait admitted, sometimes unknowingly, that they read only the headline. Others defended the story without reading beyond a few lines. This reflexive consumption, the act of reacting before understanding, is the fuel that drives misinformation and outrage.

Every viral distortion begins with a reader who does not read. In this sense, protecting the information space is not just about policing journalists; it is about cultivating a culture of critical thinking among news consumers. If readers stopped rewarding sensational headlines with instant engagement, newsrooms would have less incentive to write them.

Yet, citizens operate in an environment where trust in the media has eroded and official communication often breeds confusion. Government agencies issue half-clarifications; spokespersons contradict themselves; misinformation thrives in the vacuum of credibility. That brings us to the state’s role.

The Government’s Paradox

Governments often position themselves as custodians of truth through regulations, media reforms, or “fact-checking” initiatives. But in practice, this posture risks sliding into censorship. When the Nigerian government proposes laws against “fake news,” the underlying question is not just about accuracy but about control. Who decides what counts as fake? Who benefits when certain truths are silenced?

To be clear, the government has a legitimate responsibility: ensuring citizens are not misled, strengthening media literacy, and enforcing transparency. But this responsibility turns punitive when it targets dissenting voices rather than disinformation networks. It corrodes the very ecosystem it claims to protect.

The FIJ case demonstrates why state-led “protection” of the information space can be problematic. If the government were the arbiter of what constitutes responsible journalism, stories like FIJ’s would risk suppression for being “politically sensitive.” Yet, without some framework for accountability, misinformation spreads unchecked. The balance is delicate and rarely achieved.

The Shared Burden

The truth is that no single actor can safeguard Nigeria’s information space alone. Journalists must uphold accuracy and context even under pressure for engagement. Citizens must read critically and resist the allure of outrage. Governments must support transparency and education, not control.

The FIJ incident should not be reduced to a question of whether the newsroom was right or wrong. Rather, it should provoke a larger reflection on the ecosystem that allows such controversies to flourish. Why do headlines trigger more reaction than content? Why are citizens so quick to accuse journalists of bias yet so reluctant to hold themselves accountable for what they consume and share? Why do governments prefer regulation to media literacy?

In the end, preserving the information space is not about silencing error but nurturing discernment. Journalism will always make mistakes, and audiences will always argue over interpretation. What matters is whether all parties, press, public, and power, are committed to the same goal: an information environment where truth, not outrage, drives the conversation.

The controversy that trails the FIJ report on social media is not an indictment of one newsroom; it is a reflection of an ecosystem under strain. It reveals how easily truth can be lost in the noise of outrage, and how quickly credibility can erode when context is sacrificed for clicks. Protecting Nigeria’s information space requires a renewed social contract, one built on transparency, accountability, and digital literacy. Newsrooms must frame responsibly. Readers must read attentively. Governments must act transparently.

In the end, the question is not whether FIJ was right or wrong to publish that headline. The real question is whether Nigeria’s media ecosystem, journalists, citizens, and institutions alike, can still tell the difference between what is true, what is framed, and what is false. Because in the age of viral misinformation, truth dies not when it is silenced, but when it is misunderstood.

There is a fragile trust holding Nigeria’s democracy together. Each tweet, each report, each law, and each reaction either strengthens or weakens that trust. The real question, then, is not who guards the truth, but whether we all still believe it matters.

FactCheckAfrica Editorial Desk